The Scottish court in the Netherlands was a special sitting of the High Court of Justiciary set up under Scots law in a former United States Air Force base, Camp Zeist near Utrecht, in the Netherlands, for the trial of two Libyans charged with 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988.
[2] Dutch law still theoretically applied to the area, but, barring an emergency, the Dutch authorities were banned from entering the premises and the court had the authority to enact regulations that superseded Dutch law when necessary for the execution of the trial,[4] and to jail people for contempt of court.
[6] The court convicted Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing on 31 January 2001.
From September 2003, Megrahi's conviction was under review by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which reported its findings on 28 June 2007 and granted Megrahi leave for a second appeal against conviction.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer and with an estimated three- to six-month life expectancy, Megrahi was released from Greenock prison in August 2009 after serving eight years, through a decision on compassionate grounds by the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill.